Rationale:Children
need explicit, systematic phonics
instruction in order to successfully learn to read.It is important for children to understand
that individual phonemes in words can be “mapped-out” into written
words.It is good to teach short vowels
first
because they are common.This lesson
with teach /i/=i.

Materials:

tongue
twister poster (Silly Billy wished the pig would shrink.)

word
poster (him, pick, wash, net, inch, hint, snip, print, split)

primary
paper (one piece for each student)

pencil
(one for each student)

Elkonin
boxes (The teacher and all students should have an Elkonin box with
five boxes in it.)

1.“Today we’re
going to learn about /i/.Can anyone think
of a word with /i/ in
it?Good job!Everyone
make the /i/ sound.We can make /i/ when
our
mouths are open and
our tongues are lowered.“

2.“Now I want
everyone to say ‘icky
sticky.’Can you hear /i/ in icky
sticky?Every time you hear /i/ in icky
sticky, I want you to hold that sound and make
an icky sticky motion.The motion looks like you have sticky glue on
your fingers, and you can’t get it off.Let’s try it.Iiicky
Stiicky.Good job.”

3.“Everyone
look at this poster.”(Read the tongue
twister normally to the
children first.Silly Billy wished the
pig would shrink.Then, read it and hold
the
/i/ and make the icky sticky hand
gesture every time you say it in the
tongue twister.Siiilly Biiilly wiiished
the piiig would shriiink.)“Now, I want
all
of
you to say this crazy tongue
twister just like I just did.Make sure
you make your icky sticky hand
motion.Good job!”

4.“I’m going to
say some words, and you tell me
which ones have /i/ in them.Do you hear
/i/ in big or bag...witch or watch...pick or pal…lift or loft?
Good job!

5.Hand out
Elkonin boxes and letterbox letter
sets to each child.Model how to make a
word with a letterbox.(“Watch how I do
this.I’m going to spell
the word
‘pig.’There are three sounds in pig:
/p/, /i/, /g/.I put the letter p in the
first box because the first sound is /p/.I put the letter i in the second
box because the second sound is
/i/.I put the letter g in the third box
because /g/ is the last sound in pig.”)

6.Begin
letterbox lesson.After you give each word
that you want the
students to spell in their letterboxes, walk around and make sure that
they are
getting the correct spelling.If they
have spelled a word incorrectly, say the word exactly as they have it
spelled.Wait until every student has
correctly spelled each word
before moving on to the next word. (3
phonemes:him, pick, wash, net, inch; 4
phonemes:hint, snip; 5 phonemes:
print,
split)

7.Take up
Elkonin boxes and letters.

8.Hold up word
poster.Ask students to read the words
from the word
poster as you point to each word.

9.Pass out
books.(Liz is
Six)Give booktalk.“Liz gets a mitt for her birthday.She
plays baseball with a pig.Imagine that!You’ll have to read the book
to hear all the baseball game.”

10.Have
students read the book with a
partner.One partner reads one page, and
the other partner reads the next page, etc.

14.As students
are writing their message, call
one student at a time to come and read pseudowords.Assess their understanding of /i/=i by
counting
how many words they get correct.(sib, hin, pim, mir, bik, frip, slin)